Nintendo looking to win next-gen price wars with Wii U

We have just informed you about a recent image that Nintendo revealed unveiling a specs infographic for the Wii U, but now we firmly switch our attention to how much the first next-generation of gaming consoles is going to cost.

Unsurprisingly, Nintendo had no official statements to make during their E3 keynote about how much the Wii U will be priced when it goes on sale towards the end of 2012. Back in January earlier this year, we told you about initial prices for the system ranging from $500 to $600, which is obviously a figure that most of you would not be happy paying.

Despite staying silent on the matter, Nintendo has however revealed that consumers are going to be ‘pleasantly surprised’ once they see the final price for the Wii U unveiled. Reggie Fils-Aime told IGN that they are currently managing the ‘value equation’ and that consumers are going to get a quality product to reflect the price they are paying.

The most interesting aspect of his statement though was when he said that they won’t be following pricing strategies of that of competitors, i.e Sony or Microsoft. He referenced the fact that Sony traditionally price their products at a very high premium to start with (£425 for the PS3) and then reduce it afterwards with gradual price cuts. He made a big hint to say that the Nintendo Wii U won’t be following the same pattern, so obviously the great news for gamers is that we could see the system enter at a very reasonable price and then stay at that price for a considerable amount of time.

With that in mind, retailer ShopTo has picked the perfect time to put up an estimation of what they believe could end up to be an accurate price for the Wii U. If you head to their page online, you’ll see that they have put a £280 price up for the system, which when translated to USD equates to around $435.

For the brand new hardware and innovative touchscreen controller tech that you are getting, we would say that £280 is a reasonable price and certainly within the ‘pleasantly surprised’ bracket that Nintendo were hinting at. Considering that Sony priced their Vita at $249 at launch, we have a feeling that many of you wouldn’t mind coffing up a little extra for a brand new ‘next-gen’ console.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you welcome the idea of Nintendo sticking to one reasonable price point and not making any price cuts through the months? In a nutshell – how does $435 / £280 sound to you?